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Cullinane expresses sympathy to family of former Senator Liam Kelly

Sinn Féin Senator David Cullinane has expressed his sympathies to the family of former Senator Liam Kelly

Liam Kelly passed away in the United States on the 8th of June. He was a leading member of Saor Uladh and was elected as an abstentionist MP to the Stormont assembly for Mid Tyrone in the 1950s and was subsequently was a member of the Seanad.

Speaking in the Seanad today, Senator Cullinane said

“Liam Kelly was committed in his pursuit of Irish independence. It is fitting that this week we will have a debate on the role of the Seanad, and as part of that we will be discussing the potential it has for north-south engagement. Just under 57 years ago, in November 1954, Senator Kelly spoke in favour of a motion which proposed the rights of people from the north of Ireland to participate in the Oireachtas. Not as a gesture, but as of right. We in Sinn Féin have long argued for such a right, and will make that point again today.

“Liam Kelly said: ‘it is obviously anomalous that my right to address a House of the Oireachtas on behalf of the people in mid-Tyrone or South Armagh should depend on the goodwill or generosity of the public representatives of the Twenty-Six Counties. I appreciate, of course, and am grateful for this gesture of understanding and goodwill on their part. I claim for the people of mid-Tyrone, South Armagh and of any constituency in any part of Ireland that desires to do so the right to representation in Oireachtas Éireann.’

“I extend my condolences to the Kelly family, and in particular his wife Peggy, on Senator Kelly’s death, and I would ask the house to recognise his many decades of service to the Irish people, and to likewise express their sympathies.”